Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchSagrada Familia: Completing Gaudi’s vision
When visionary architect Antoni Gaudi died unexpectedly in 1926, his followers were left with incredible plaster of Paris models showing how to compl…
2 years ago
The expulsion of the Sudeten Germans
At the end of World War Two, the Czechoslovak government expelled up to three million German speakers, known as the Sudeten Germans.
They were accuse…
2 years ago
Kawarau Bridge: The first bungee jumping site in New Zealand
On 12 November 1988, the world’s first commercial bungee jumping site was opened near Queenstown, New Zealand.
AJ Hackett and Henry Van Asch started …
2 years ago
The first mega cruise ship
On 16 January 1988, the world’s largest passenger ship, Sovereign of the Seas, set sail on her maiden voyage around the Caribbean.
She carried more th…
2 years ago
The beginning of Benidorm
In the 1950s, the transformation of the sleepy little town of Benidorm began when Pedro Zaragoza was appointed mayor. He started by getting pipes …
2 years ago
How Cancún became a tourist destination
In 1969, Antonio Enríquez Savignac was given the go-ahead to transform a secluded Mexican island into a world-beating tourist destination.
The technoc…
2 years ago
The first budget transatlantic flights
In 1955, a small Icelandic airline, Loftleioir Icelandic, slashed the cost of flying across the Atlantic.
For the first time, thousands of young Ameri…
2 years ago
Orelhão: Brazil's iconic egg-shaped telephone booth
In 1971, an architect called Chu Ming Silveira created Brazil's iconic egg-shaped telephone booth, Orelhão.
More than 50,000 of the booths were insta…
2 years ago
Kielland disaster
In 1980, 123 men were killed when the Alexander L. Kielland platform capsized in the North Sea oil fields.
It was Norway's biggest industrial disaster…
2 years ago
The Irish shopworkers strike against apartheid
In 1984, a 21-year-old Irish shopworker refused to serve a customer buying two South African grapefruits. Mary Manning was suspended from the Dunnes …
2 years ago